Travel, food, climbing, and adventures

Chong Phli – Scorpion

I decided I need to work on my endurance. So I warmed up on Exfoliation 6a+. I’m getting better at climbing this one and have started to find subtle ways to refine the beta to make climbing it easier. Then we move over to PillBox 6b+. This is a vertical to slightly overhanging route with mostly good hand holds and a few spots with bad feet. I figure running laps on this will be good for endurance. So I go up then climb one more time on top rope. I wanted to do a couple more laps but someone wanted to climb Scorpion 7b which shares most of PillBox. So I took a break and let him climb with my rope so I could try Scorpion on top rope. 7a+ / 7b is a breakthrough grade that has been my goal to reach for a long time so I was curious to see how I would do on this route. Well, it didn’t go well. I got stuck just a few moves past the end of PillBox. But it was fun to try.

A couple days later Anong and I head back to Chong Phli. I still want to work on endurance but decide to change my approach a little bit and climb several different routes instead of one route several times. We got a late start. Not there till nearly 11am but were able to climb:

Zack Attack 5

EFZ 6a+

Momentum 6b

Exfoliation 6a+

Dude Abides 6a+

I cheated a little bit on Dude Abides by pulling on a sling because one of the hand holds I needed was too dirty to hang on to. I also fixed up the anchor on Dude Abides a bit since the “anchor” was basically just one sling and a carabiner. Pretty sketchy. I replaced it with three slings and two stainless steel rings I pulled off another climb at Bat Cave. I was intending to clean the route up as well (it’s very dirty in the cave) but it was getting late and we were hungry so will save that for next time.